Prime Minister/Holiday

Asked if the Prime Minister felt relaxed and ‘raring to go’ after his summer holiday, the PMOS said yes. Asked about a reported incident relating to a football game involving the Prime Minister and Prime Minister Berlusconi of Italy, the PMOS said that his days as a football commentator were long gone. Those who had read his match reports in the Belfast Telegraph would know why. Questioned further, the PMOS declined to comment on a game he hadn’t attended.

What’s not sad: that the press in Belfast will rake him over the coals for not attending a football game that he later comments on.

What’s sad: That our politicians are so afraid of negative press that they’re unwilling to do so *anyways*, and we’re so enamored with the press that we take such off-handed comments seriously.

What individual out there doesn’t regularly watch a game on TV, or even highlights, and then comment on it the next day at work? Is that news? Is that even interesting? Why condemn someone for something we all do? Why does it matter?

Blair’s team has one thing right: There is something going horribly wrong – horribly American, if I might say so – with the relationship between the people, the politicians, and the press that we watch them through. However much we hope that sites like this can change the impression of politicians and turn the tide on at least one side of the spin, the reality is that what we are reading is still geared towards the ears of the press who are at least part of the problem, if not also part of the solution.

I don’t know where we go from here – but it’s times like this when it becomes readily apparent that something has gone Pete Tong in politics.